It is well established that silhouette decoys for game birds are effective and desirable alternatives to three dimensional, or "full-body" decoys, especially for game birds such as wild geese. The flat silhouettes are easily stored, transported and deployed, and in most instances less expensive to produce. Importantly for bird hunters, flat silhouette decoys are considered just as effective in luring the desired prey as a realistically rendered full-body decoy.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,707,798 to Tryon discloses a silhouette goose decoy having a color "photo-reproduced" image of an actual goose on the decoy. A common and difficult problem for flat decoys is "flashing." Flashing occurs when the sun reflects off of the surface of the decoy. As soon as a bird observes the bright and unnatural flashing of the decoy, the bird is alerted to the strangeness of the decoy and will be repelled from it instead of attracted to it. Tryon '798 employs a color photographic technique to apply the image to the decoy. However, Tryon '798 fails to address the problem of sunlight flashing off the flat photographic image on the decoy.
Several flat decoys have been manufactured that include measures intended to reduce flashing. U.S. Pat. No. 4,845,827 to Anderson employs a rough fiber and resin board in a silhouette goose decoy to achieve a "non-glare surface" that is represented to help prevent mirror-like glare of sunlight. Anderson '827 teaches the pressing of a wire screen into the fiberboard to form a screen pattern into its wood fibers. Wire screen pressing is a time consuming and expensive step, and limits the manufacture of the silhouette to specific fiberboard materials, which can fail to stand up to the weathering demands required of decoys. Additionally, as taught by Anderson '827, the roughened fiberboard only provides an adequate substrate for black paint or white paint. A roughened, weatherproof goose silhouette decoy is needed that includes a more realistic color image of a goose.
Like Anderson '827, U.S. Pat. No. 5,293,703 to Cripe also includes measures intended to reduce flashing in silhouette decoys. Cripe '703 discloses a flat, plastic decoy with a photographic image applied beneath a low reflectivity topcoat. Cripe '703 employs a conventional four color printing process to achieve the photographic image. For the topcoat, Cripe '703 specifies a transparent UV ink that includes "amorphous transparent furned silica particles." Cripe '703 reports that a low reflectivity of 2% to 4% at a light incident angle of 60.degree. can be achieved with his photographic decoy printing process. However, the standard 60.degree. test angle is not a reliable indicator for other angles of incident light, nor can low reflectivity at any single angle be considered a guarantee that other angles of incident light, especially sunlight, will also have low reflectance. In practice, the Cripe '703 decoy fails to adequately reduce flashing at all angles of incident sunlight. A color, photo-reproduced goose decoy is needed that better reduces flashing in sunlight, especially as compared to Tryon '798 and Cripe '703.